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Luke 14:26 (NASB)
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his
own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and
sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
Influenced by our
current series on The Gospel Of The Kingdom, several months
ago, I began work on a Mother's Day message called "Motherhood & The
Kingdom Of God. The potential for misunderstanding and controversy
intensified with the Scriptures I considered using. After wrestling
with the rough draft for three weeks, to move ahead with the word
seemed to be good to the Holy Spirit. Here are some of the
highlights:
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On Kingdom rule
in a family:
Through
Jesus, nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever be the same again:
We are "a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new
has come." "He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." Every tie
is cut. Every attachment severed. "Do you think that I have come
to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. . .
" "Not peace, but a sword. . ." with which to cut asunder every
cord that binds you to this age. You cannot serve two masters.
Today is
Mother's Day. It is time for reflection upon motherhood. In
order to view motherhood in a uniquely Christian way, it must be
seen with the movement of the kingdom of God into this world in
the person and work of Jesus, every human institution including
motherhood is about to pass away. Or to put it more personally,
Jesus, who has come that we might be set free from this age,
calls our love for mother radically into question.
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C.S.
Lewis Quote:
The Christian way is
different. . . . Christ says, "Give me all. I don't want so much
of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work:
I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to
kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off
a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree
down. I don't want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it,
but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the
desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think
wicked — the whole outfit."
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Matthew 10:34-37; Mark 12:28-34
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Conditions of Discipleship |
Giving The Whole Heart To God |
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Cross-Bearing
Matthew
16:24
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come
after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and
follow Me. |
In Love
Deuteronomy 6:5
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your might.
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Renunciation
Matthew
10:37
"He who loves father or mother more than
Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter
more than Me is not worthy of Me. |
In Obedience
Psalm 119:2
How blessed are those who observe His
testimonies, Who seek Him with all their heart.
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Leaving All
Luke
14:33
"So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give
up all his own possessions. |
In Trust
Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on
your own understanding. |
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Consistency
John
8:31
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If
you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples
of Mine; |
In Prayer
Jeremiah 29:13
'You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me
with all your heart. |
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Fruitfulness
John 15:8
"My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit,
and so prove to be My disciples.
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In Repentance
Joel
2:12
"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "Return to Me with all
your heart… |
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The word "hate" in
Luke 14:26:
Joseph Ernest Renan,
the nineteenth-century author of the blasphemous
The Life of Jesus, seized this text to declare that
Jesus was "trampling under foot everything that is human — blood
and love and country . . . despising the healthy limits of man's
nature . . . abolishing all natural ties." In an effort to make
Jesus appear monstrous, Renan ignored Jesus' regular use of
startling, penetrating paradox to make his point. Jesus, as
often, states a principle in a startling way, and leaves his
hearers to find out the qualifications.
Jesus refuses to be one among many on a list of loved ones. He
will share our love with no one. He will have it all, or we are
not his. It is this exclusive claim upon our love that prompts
Jesus to use the word "hate" in describing how we should respond
to the claims of motherhood.
The
hate which Jesus demands us to have for our mothers has nothing
to do with selfish ill will or desire for their hurt. That would
be a bondage to this age, not a freedom from it. That would
reflect an unsatisfied craving for some fulfillment that we
think we can have by abusing an institution of this age. Jesus
is not demanding this kind of craving, because His intention is
clearly that we find our fulfillment in undivided love for Him.
The word "hate" drives home the necessity of this undivided love
for Jesus.
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The bottom
line:
The Lord
calls us from our compliance to this age into His transforming
Kingdom, and having freed us from every competing worldly
allegiance—like motherhood—He then, in freedom, sends us
back into these very institutions to maintain and to honor them;
for He created them and ordained them for the preservation of
orderly human life in this age.
But, here is the catch, no longer do we honor them for their own
sake or for ours; we honor them for God's sake and for His
alone.
Every act of honor, obedience or submission in
the institutions of this world order is to be an act of honor,
obedience, and submission to the Lord Christ.
In the end, our congregation
was very receptive and appreciative of the declaration of God's
ultimate claims on our lives.
The grace of the
Lord Jesus be with you,
Pastor Bill
Questions, comments,
thoughts please contact us:
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